Rip Van Winkle Compare And Contrast Essay

Over the course of this week we read two works of writing. One is the short story “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving in 1819. The other is Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. These two stories are pinnacle pieces of literature. One being a well known fictional work through the United States, the other is the writing of and by one of America’s Founding Fathers. Both pieces are very intertwined with American literature. For both to be such great American works of literature there is a strikingly a large difference in mannerism between Rip Van Winkle and Benjamin Franklin; and with that a whole different theme to the intended audience. Rip Van Winkle is portrayed as a very lackadaisical man. Rip Van Winkle is constantly verbally berated by his nagging wife and seeks asylum any way possible. Most of the time it is leisurely walks through the town and the encompassing mountain range, The Catskill mountains. Rip Van Winkle pursues a very seldom lifestyle with no pursuit and no ambition. He displays almost no willingness to change from his traditional ways after realizing the American colonies were independent from British Tyranny. He even still accepts the rule of King George III when he enters the town greeting the towns people with saying he is a loyal subject of the king. The reader can see his total disembodiment from the situation when the narrator says “instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician;

Irving chooses to show us through a negative lense of a man who pays the price and is disoriented with the change in life with little ability to merge into society. On the other side Ben Franklin explains the greatest that came from his personal pursuits, although it is riddle with faults and blatant lies it lifts this ideal of how Americans should be to be productive members of